Are Patents merely “Paper Tigers”?

Patents, whose legal validity is assumed generally and particularly in infringement proceedings, are in fact subject to a considerable risk of being declared invalid. The present contribution confirms this based on a statistical evaluation of the case law of the German Federal Patent Court and the German Federal Court of Justice in nullity matters in the period from 2010 to 2013. A broad discussion on the causes, effects and possible corrective measures seems to be necessary.